Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Goes on Sale at SingTel

Announced earlier this month at IFA, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is officially launched in Singapore today, with the three local telcos organizing their own launch events to herald its arrival. For SingTel, its launch event was held at Exhibition Hall E of the Marina Bay Sands Convention Center. As usual, we were there to feel the buzz.

The first person in the queue was Mr. Aesel James, who is a 27 years old systems executive. He told us that he arrived at the venue at around 4:30 AM this morning. Before this, his smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy S3, and it was only naturally that he upgraded to the Note 3 (instead of the S4) as his SingTel mobile contract has just ran out.

For 30-year-old Mr. Gedeon Goh, he is making the switch from the Apple camp. He wanted to purchase the Note 3 as he felt that the ecosystem for Android devices has matured to match that of Apple's. At the same time, he wanted to enjoy the large 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display offered by the Note 3. He was second in the queue when he arrived at 6 AM this morning.

As a noteworthy companion to the star of the show, the Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch was also on sale at the event. Its recommended retail price is S$488, but at the event, SingTel offered a S$100 discount. In fact, as we've reported earlier, all those who've successfully registered their interest and pre-ordered the Note 3 from the telcos get to enjoy this S$100 discount.

The Galaxy Gear is able to act as an extension of supported Samsung devices (currently just the Note 3 and Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition) due to the presence of a camera and a microphone. With the microphone, the user is able to answer voice calls with the watch. Images and videos recorded by the device are easily shared with the paired Samsung device.

The exhibition hall was mostly occupied by 55 sales counters to process sales transactions. According to the SingTel spokesperson, a customer only needs to spend a maximum of 15 minutes at the sale counter and he is able to walk away with the Note 3. We were told that there were about 23,000 SingTel customers who registered their interests to purchase the Note 3 at launch.

But wait, there's more! Turn the page to find out what happened over at M1 and StarHub.